A bright red punch bowl sits in the corner at the House of Blues. Students dance in the center of the room as others group on the perimeter. The smell of food and the sound of music fill the room while students laugh and have fun.
The high school holds three major outside-of-school events: the Powerpuff game, junior semi-formal and senior prom every year. Underclassmen are often excluded from these events, as they have a main focus on upperclassmen.
Head of School Anthony Meyer said he has never noticed a great deal of interest in having more traditional school events such as formals. Meyer also said that dances are expensive, and with a lack of continued interest from students, there has never been a need to have many.
“There’s some interest in dances, but I don’t know that it’s ever been pursued heavily with deans,” Meyer said. “I think there are two routes to pursue the possibility. Check in with your class dean and with the steering committee in your grade.”
Meyer also said the pep rally, a parade that used to happen before the Powerpuff game, was terminated after the pandemic due to incidents involving vaping and drinking.
“We phased out the pep rally, but it’s something we would consider again in the future if there was great interest,” Meyer said.
According to senior Timur Tuncman, a member of Legislature and Student Council, there are talks of forming a committee for the expansion of school dances, but currently, there is no substantial movement.
“I think we just really need a student push, and then I think [administration] will listen, but I think there really hasn’t been that push yet. I think it’s been a lot of talk and not a lot of doing. But I do think they’ll be receptive to it,” Tuncman said.
Senior Antonia Duffield, a member of Legislature, said that although Legislature is not currently focused on school dances and spirit, there is hope that in the second semester there will be a bigger push. With interest, Duffield said dances could definitely be a priority.
“I tried to actually make a spirit committee to work on maybe making school dances for younger grades and for just more spirit in general. Right now, we kind of have other things that we’re focusing on, but hopefully, in the second semester we’ll be able to work on that more,” Duffield said.
Duffield also said due to the high school’s more academically-focused culture in comparison to other schools, school events slowly got lost as the population grew.
“It’s become more difficult to have full school events,” Duffield said. “With events like Powerpuff sometimes, I think the administration thinks that it gets too rowdy or out of control, so they just decide to have less whole-school events just to control things because there are so many kids.”
According to Assistant Head of School Hal Mason, every dance or rally is a big undertaking with many people and much planning required. Mason also said that it is often hard to get students to attend events and events are often canceled due to poor student behavior.
“Those things sometimes get very popular and then they wane in popularity,” Mason said. “And again, you’ve got to find people willing to organize and run those events.”
Despite obstacles, Duffield said she is hopeful that there will be more dances and events in the future.
“Finding a way to organize it all because we have so many other things going on in the school can be difficult,” Duffield said. “But I think if we make it a priority and I think if a student body really expresses interest, I’m sure we can make it.”
